Urban Shelter by Aldo Chaparro

Aldo Chaparro designed a shelter for the homeless out of steal. Not only does the shelter function as a place to sleep but it is designed especially as a place for street vendors to start a business, the triangle-shaped hut has a out folding table part and a place to store goods. The shelters are also designed so they can be easily attached to each other as to create a community. The Shelter is left in this public spot in the center of Mexico DF to be appropriated by anyone who can make good use of it.

Tlaloc Benches

This is the design for benches made out of blue, concrete enforcement steel wire. The wire frame is frozen into a block of ice as used by the street vendors in Mexico DF. The blocks will be stacked and laid out to melt in Chimalhuacan forming a place for gathering in the community. The benches are jointly designed by Hector Esrawe and Emiliano Godoy and will be produced in an edition of ten pieces.

Platform for Urban Investigation Podcast

Dear All,

I'm proud to present to you: The first Platform for Urban Investigation Podcast. Clicking this post will take you to the blogger-site where you can subscribe to the podcast in your podcast reader by clicking the orange chicklet. Enjoy!

LIMPIANDO VENTANAS (Daan Noppen- Monica Hernandez)

Limpiando ventanas is a short documentary about a group of young men washing carwindows on the corner of Lazaro cardenas street in Mexico DF. The documentary shows a group of young men creating their own micro enterprise to make a living. The group forms a close bond with their own social codes working together in order to survive in the economical environment of Mexico DF.

CALLEJEROS (Avenida Izazaga- Eje Central)

CALLEJEROS:

callejero, -ra (adjetivo)

1De la calle (vía pública) o relacionado con ella: perro callejero.
2[persona] Que gusta de callejear.
3nombre masculino
Esp Guía que contiene el nombre de las calles de una población y un plano para localizarlas.
http://www.diccionarios.com/consultas.php

This project is based in the concept of Callejeros.
In Spanish we use this word for anything or anybody that comes from or in a way its life is related and/ or belongs to the street. At the same time callejeros is the name of a street guide consisting in different maps containing the different streets and neighborhoods of a city.
Thru Panoramic views (photography) of the street Lazaro Cardenas with Avenida de las Torres, of Mexico D.F. I’ll work with the people, callejeros, that are part of this urban scenery. I had chosen the ones that for me give identity to that place. I’ll be working with a group of 8 young male car windows washers on Izazaga ave.
Departing from my own interpretation through images, I want to have them showing their own perception of that fragment of city that they inhabit day by day, as well as showing the relations between the places they live and where they work. I want to confront both views, theirs and mine, questioning that way what defines our identity on an individual as well as on a social level.
I want to create a Callejero guide based in maps build up by all the images, drawings, and recreation of not only the physical spaces but of the psychological interrelations (video) that each of this characters had created with the place that surrounds them.
I’m searching for those multiple cities within a city… a city seen not only as a physical space but also rather as a space created for our memories, a city form by ethereal landscapes.

Poetry MAPS

This is an example of the project Poetry MAPS that will be headed by Margarita Almada. It aims to turn the street names of Chimalhuacan into poetry so navigation can be done by poems instead of maps. Eventually the audiance will be asked to walke these poetry maps as a performance in Chimalhuacan. This example was made by Allard van Hoorn. Any poets interested to participate please feel free to contact me and I will send you maps to work with...

Swimming For Freedom

Here I am
In an ancient zigzag
Through the waters of old
Searching soul, freedom, clear water
Amazon, Nile, Tiber make me run, escape and find
Make me jump onto the safe haven of my old friend Noah
Too much pressure, now the wind heaves
The hull flips and turns her belly up
Quick belly hop, swallow me, Moby-foe
Swim backwards, out of the dark and spit me up
The endless sand of simmering heat
Crawl backwards once again
Holding on to the last debris of shattered dream
Until my last turn is for the best
I throw off my wet shroud
And finally start to learn
To walk up straight
Reborn, free, perhaps even fly

Chimalhuacan recupera su condicion lacustre

AS OURSELVES

«Como nosotros mismos/As Ourselves» es el nombre que hemos dado al proyecto de documentar la situación del municipio de Chimalhuacán, Edo. de Méx.; comúnmente ignorada o, en peor caso, deformada por el prejuicio. Así, al margen de toda retórica nuestro empeño es solventar el conocimiento de una zona cuyo exotismo confina usualmente su percepción.
Consecuentemente distinguir aquí entre mostrar y convertir en espectáculo resulta inminente, por ello hemos decidido proceder como sigue.
A través de lo que consideramos más común al sitio; esto es, sus habitantes, intentaremos promover otras lecturas del lugar; menos integrales si se quiere pero también, potencialmente más hondas y significativas. Asimismo permitiremos y alentaremos su protagonismo -el de los habitantes- de manera que nuestra propia participación quede limitada y que sea la subjetividad de éstos la que articule el sentido final del proyecto.
De este modo, la idea entonces es trabajar de manera conjunta con los pobladores de Chimalhuacán, en específico una familia, cuya vida será documentada en parte por ella; a través de anécdotas, fotografías y videocintas familiares, etc. y, por nosotros, a través de medios similares. Concluido esto, se planea para el final la elaboración de una instalación; un área de lectura hecha con mobiliario perteneciente a la familia involucrada en el proyecto y una publicación impresa distribuida ahí y cuyo contenido será la documentación reunida.

Ramiro Pedraza
Iván Martínez
Eduardo Berry

Chimalhuacan Map

Arturo Ortiz
Taller Territorial de México